


When the Springtime Has Gone

by Esta Camille Lupin (edye327)



Series: I'll Be Loving You [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, This is an epilogue, but holy newtina, it's not just purely newtina or purely jaqueenie, jaqueenie, newtina, newtina angst, newtina fluff, so it's going to cover a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10514358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edye327/pseuds/Esta%20Camille%20Lupin
Summary: Epilogue toThen Will My Love Linger On.Newt, who smells of home and sand and sun and everything Tina ever wanted. Newt, who after all this time touches her as though she's something precious and he can't quite believe that she's his. Newt, who looks down at her now and nearly chokes up and she does not know why.“What's wrong?” she murmurs, and smooths back his hair.He shakes his head, biting his lip. “Nothing.”Title from "Always" by Irving Berlin (1925)





	1. Blue days, all of them gone

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I promised an epilogue, and here we are. It won’t be as long as TWMLLO, thank god, but it’ll be enough to fill in a lot of the blanks. Thanks to people who filled out my survey. I really appreciate it! 
> 
> I’ve been working on [this police AU](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10428960/chapters/23027952), if you haven’t already read it, and it’s nice and short and light-hearted, I promise. (ETA: I FINALLY FINISHED IT! Yay. So go check it out if you like AUs and fluff.)
> 
> I have to slowly update all the other fics in this series. I also have, as usual, about a million other things in the works.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The President comes over just as Queenie kneels down and pushes aside a pile of debris. Ewan squints up at them. “Aw, man,” he says. “What’d I miss?”
> 
> 2\. “No,” she says, backing away and pressing a trembling hand to her mouth, “no no no no no, they’re not, they can’t be — they were just fighting, I just saw them — I don’t understand.”
> 
> 3\. Newt suddenly grabs Tina by the shoulders, pulling her to her feet, and tugs her through the balcony door to their room.
> 
> AKA, BRACE YOURSELF FOR SOME CAVITY-INDUCING NEWTINA CANOODLING. And oh hey, Ewan's alive!
> 
> Chapter title from "April Showers" by B.G. DeSylva (1921)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I planned poorly and didn't want to have to go to all the effort later to tag this, etc., so I'm posting it unedited before I go to bed.
> 
> Interestingly enough, I have recently learned that I have haters — and, more specifically, poor Sophia has haters too. I’m sure there are Sopheus haters as well. To which I can only say thank you, because damned if that isn’t the biggest compliment a writer can receive. To be able to create characters that are three-dimensional and believable enough for people to have actual strong feelings, whether good or bad, about/for them, is a real accomplishment. And to have a basically original ship be legitimate and established enough for it to attract haters and devout non-shippers (like all those anti-Newtina folks out there) is like, my dream. 
> 
> So no, haters, I’m not letting you get to me, and I’m going to keep writing my fucking OCs and KICK ASS. Hopefully.

_Dreams will all come true, growing old with you_

_And time will fly_

_Caring each day more than the day before_

_Till spring rolls by_

_Then when the springtime has gone_

_Then will my love linger on_

~*~

Nobody quite knows what to do after Tina and Lucille disappear. Newt is somewhat of a nervous wreck, and Theseus can’t stop thinking about the fact that Sophia still doesn’t know her parents are dead and somebody is going to have to break the news.

“The casualties,” Elsie says quietly.

Sophia looks stressed. “What’re we gonna do?”

“Identify them first,” David says.

“I’ll help,” Queenie offers quietly, stepping forward, and Jacob takes her hand.

Newt, Theseus, and Sophia — intrepid trio that they are — don’t volunteer. The battle, and everything leading up to it, has taken quite a lot out of them physically and mentally. But Seraphina, dread written all over her face because she knows she will have to confront Ewan, silently follows with the rest of the council and a handful of islanders. The others re-erect the tent, which was only slightly askew, and start treating injuries. Juliet oversees the efforts, realizing now that if she cannot perform the magic, she can at the very least tell others how to do so.

Suddenly there’s a great wind; everyone on the island looks up, squinting at the rising sun, and faces one of the more breath-taking sights any of them have ever beheld. Delphyne is flying back towards them, scales glinting with silver and gold and some indescribable color, and her eyes are dark and shining with something as old as the island, as ancient as the magic. Aged as she is, she is certainly no less agile as she lands with a thump on the grass before the tent.

Every single child is back, safe and sound. Overjoyed parents tearfully reunite, but they have no idea what to tell the orphans who have returned, whose mothers and fathers are lying slain where Wyverthwaite once was.

“We went to Delphyne’s cave!” a little girl says excitedly, jumping up and down. “It was _massive!”_

Meanwhile, Queenie, who’s walking around and moving bodies to the side, lining them up as they are identified, feels something odd and stops still.

“You okay, doll?” Jacob asks, squeezing her hand in concern.

“Shh,” she shushes him, and shuts her eyes. If she can only _focus..._ “Seraphina!” Queenie suddenly says sharply. The President comes over just as Queenie kneels down and pushes aside a pile of debris.

Ewan squints up at them. “Aw, man,” he says. “What’d I miss?”

* * *

Sophia isn’t stupid; she knows, by now, that if her parents were here they would’ve shown up. But she needs to hear it, because logically it just doesn’t make _sense,_ and Theseus has drifted unhelpfully off to the side, shoulders hunched.

“Hey, Newt?” Sophia asks uncertainly, tugging at his arm. He balks. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Where are Mom and Dad?”

He still doesn’t say anything, only gazes at her in complete and utter misery. She feels worse and worse.

“Newt?” She’s practically begging him for information now, because it can’t possibly be what she thinks it is...

“Your parents are dead,” he chokes out. Her stomach turns in horror; she can feel her world come tumbling down. “They’re gone, I am so sorry —”

“No,” she says, backing away and pressing a trembling hand to her mouth, “no no no no no, they’re not, they can’t be — they were just fighting, I just saw them — I don’t understand.”

“They are,” Newt says bleakly. “They’re gone.”

Before Sophia can say another word, Theseus appears from behind them and grabs Newt roughly by the arm, spinning him around. “You couldn’t have done that with a bit more tact?” he hisses.

Flummoxed by his brother’s sudden aggression, Newt defends himself, “How else do you deliver such news? She was going to find out —”

“Shut _up,”_ Theseus snaps furiously, and lets Newt go with a little shove. “Go.”

“Sophia —”

“It’s fine, you should go,” Sophia says quietly. Newt appears positively heartbroken at the rejection. She doesn’t really care.

“I am _so_ sorry,” Theseus says, looking down at Sophia. Her mind is racing, she can’t wrap her head around this, because it _can’t_ be, they can’t be gone, she had to show them around the island and introduce them to Theseus and she was going to go home soon, she really was, once this was cleared up...

“They can’t be gone,” she breathes.

Theseus only stands there.

She gazes up at him hopelessly, plaintively, and runs her fingers through her hair. “I...”

“Come on,” Theseus says, jerking his head towards the boardwalk. Numb, she takes his hand and follows.

* * *

Miraculously, Ewan is fine. “Knocked me out good, I couldn't move and I blacked out for awhile there, but I don't think they were as brilliant as they thought,” he says cheerfully. “Takes more than that to get me!”

For her part, Seraphina has been unable to stop the tears ever since finding her brother alive. Ewan, sitting on a table in the tent and kicking his legs back and forth, watches her in mingled amusement and concern.

“I dunno what it says when I come back from the dead and all my sister does is cry. What, is it that much of a disappointment?”

“I am just... deeply grateful,” she explains, taking a shuddery breath.

“Yeah, guess you don’t get twice the inheritance then,” Ewan quips, and nudges her. She gives a watery laugh as he wraps his arm around her shoulder and she leans back against the edge of the table.

“When the dementors came,” Seraphina says, “I thought of you.”

Ewan musses up her hair. “Thanks, sis. Guess it worked, huh?”

Seraphina looks at her brother, then back into space. “It certainly did.”

There’s a long silence in which the two of them watch islanders weave in and out, carrying supplies and talking urgently. Then Ewan reaches over and grabs Seraphina’s hand, squeezing almost painfully hard to get her attention.

“Hey Sera,” he says when she turns towards him questioningly, “didja know I'm gay?” Despite his lighthearted tone, he looks pained and weary.

“What?!” is Seraphina’s knee-jerk response.

Ewan shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah, I... I’ve known since we were kids, y’know, couldn’t say anything. Mom probably wouldn’t take it well, and I — well, truth be told I wasn’t so sure you’d take it well either. But seeing as I nearly died, I thought it was about time you knew. So.” He gestures to himself. “I’m gay.”

“I — you —” Seraphina is speechless, eyes sparkling with more tears and she doesn’t even know why or what to think.

“I’d change it if I could,” Ewan says fiercely, and she realizes in horror that her lack of response must come off terribly, “and I... tried. To cure it.”

“Ewan, no,” Seraphina murmurs, heart breaking as she understands the implication. “Curing” homosexuality in the 1920s is a nasty business.

Ewan clenches his jaw. “When I showed up in your office, it was after I’d realized that I couldn’t put myself through all that, just to be someone different. One of these days I gotta be enough for myself. Take myself for what I am, you know? I love who I love, but it’s just that, Sera, it’s just love,” he says almost pleadingly, as though trying to convince her.

“It’s fine, Ewan,” Seraphina is finally able to say, placing a hand on her brother’s arm. “You are still my brother. It does not matter to me whom you love, as long as you do love.”

“Really?” he whispers, and she can _see_ the pain play across his features. Somehow he’s held this inside, beneath a facade of carelessness and jokes and womanizing. But now he’s bared it all, bared his suffering, to his sister, and she wishes more than anything that she had known.

“Of course,” she says vehemently. “You are my twin. We have been together from the first day.”

“You kicked me, a _lot,”_ Ewan points out. It’s true: their mother always said that while Ewan cried the loudest when he was born, Seraphina kept her up almost every night kicking.

“You certainly got your revenge,” Seraphina replies, pointing to the scar on her arm, from when he quite literally attempted to beat her up in a savage fist fight as toddlers.

Ewan shrugs. “What can I say, I’m a vengeful guy.” He flashes a crooked smile. “Got back at the Grindlers, anyway. Being alive, and all.”

Overwhelmed with emotion, Seraphina throws her arms around her brother. “I love you,” she sniffles against his neck.

“Well,” Ewan says, pulling back to peck her on the forehead, “at least now you got a good excuse to cry.”

* * *

When Tina, exhausted, returns to the island, her boyfriend sprints halfway across the field to reach her.

“Hey,” she says wearily when he wraps his arms around her and notches his chin over her shoulder. “Are you smelling me?”

“No,” he says, immediately straightening, then presses his forehead to hers and smiles. “Perhaps.”

Tina laughs disbelievingly, because this is over and everything that's been happening has... it hasn't been resolved, exactly, but it's _over_ and now she can be normal, at least for a little while.

“I love you,” Newt reminds her gently.

“I love you too.” _So much._ Then she frowns: in the excitement, she still hasn’t forgotten Sophia’s offhanded comment a few hours ago. “Wait, Soph said something about a ring —”

“Nothing,” Newt says, and springs back from her in alarm. “Er... it's nothing.”

“Okay,” Tina says, amused. Of course she doesn't expect Newt to propose anytime soon. Not that she would _object,_ but the chances of him actually having an engagement ring are slim to none. She's fine with that. Just being here with him, like this, is really all she could ask for. It’s quiet and cool and lush green where they are; the others, milling around, haven’t seen them yet, haven’t realized Tina is back, and she would rather keep it that way.

“Did you tell Sophia?” she asks quietly.

Newt bites his lip, tears threatening to spill, and nods. Tina is unable to share any other words of comfort. Neither of them knew Sophia’s parents, but they both know Sophia all too well, and the thought of her enduring such a loss no doubt brings pain to everyone. “Theseus is with her now,” he says miserably.

It takes Tina a moment to understand. He isn’t just miserable because of George and Emilia’s death: Theseus being with her now means that she didn’t want Newt. “Sorry you couldn’t be there,” she whispers. “She loves you.”

“I feel as though I have somehow failed,” Newt confesses, seeming genuinely distressed.

“She really seems like your sister, doesn’t she?” Tina says softly.

“She _is,_ now.”

Neither of them know what to do or say from here, so they simply stand together in the middle of the meadow as the sun rises above them. Tina is struck by the overwhelming urge to get away from everyone except for Newt. They've hardly have a moment alone in far too long, simply to _talk,_ and she certainly has a lot to tell him about.

He's watching her intently. “Guest house?” he asks.

She nods and takes his hand. “Thank you.”

They make their way to the balcony, where they kick off their socks and shoes and, sighing, relax on the swinging chair, both of them beginning to feel sore from the battle. Newt just _has_ to loosen his suspenders, unbutton the top of his shirt, and roll the sleeves up to his elbows. “What?” he asks, grinning when Tina stops herself from ogling him.

She snaps her head back to its original, neutral position, staring at a fascinating white speck on the wooden railing where the paint has peeled slightly. “You know what.”

He tugs her upright and wraps his arms around her waist. “Hmm?”

“Nothing — get off!”

Newt starts tickling Tina, and she dissolves into ridiculous giggles, dodging his hands. When she finally looks up at her boyfriend his eyes are shining and his face is flushed and he's gazing down at her like she's the world. “You are beautiful,” he says, shaking his head. “Beautiful and transfixing.”

“New word, huh,” she teases him, because she has a running list of the various superfluous adjectives he has used to describe her. Beautiful, incorrigible, fascinating, stunning, infuriating, stubborn, amazing, ridiculous, brilliant... and now transfixing. “You're...” Where does she even begin to describe her idiot boyfriend?

He's waiting, eyebrow quirked in mirth, and inquires innocently, “I am what, exactly?”

Tina grins. “I'm not the one who got an O in History of Magic by _default_ when the examiner didn't want to read your 30-page essay after the first page because you started to list fifty ways to describe a _flower_ that happened to grow somewhere on the continent in the 1400s —”

“It was a very important flower!” Newt insists. “I should _not_ have told you about that.”

“But you did,” Tina returns, and drags him back over to her so she can kiss him in earnest. They've been so caught up in everything, alternately bickering and getting overly emotional, that she hasn't had _time_ with him, time for them to relax and joke and get to know each other.

They haven't had a very _normal_ relationship, Tina decides. They haven’t gone on dates, they haven’t wasted away the day doing nothing. Growing up, Tina wasn't like Queenie, who’d been kissed by fifteen boys by her third year at Ilvermorny. But even without having that degree of experience, she is entirely convinced that Newt’s lips are made for her by design. Something in her _soars_ as she reclines on the porch swing, Newt hovering above her, and kisses him languidly and unhurriedly. It isn't desperate or passionate or overwhelming. It's just... Newt.

Newt, whose lips get dry because he's got a nervous habit of wetting them. Newt, who always tastes like something Tina still can't place. Newt, who smells of home and sand and sun and everything Tina ever wanted. Newt, who after all this time touches her as though she's something precious and he can't quite believe that she's his. Newt, who looks down at her now and nearly chokes up and she does not know why.

“What's wrong?” she murmurs, and smooths back his hair.

He shakes his head, biting his lip. “Nothing.”

“I don't believe y —”

He suddenly grabs her by the shoulders, pulling her to her feet, and tugs her through the balcony door to their room.

“Newt,” she says firmly, because this is _not_ the time.

“No, I just...” He stops and takes her in. She has a healthy appreciation for exactly _how_ tousled his hair looks and the fact that he's gotten sand and dirt and grass stains on his work shirt and his suspenders are hanging down to his knees. “It isn't _like_ that.”

“No?”

“Please,” he says quietly, and how is she supposed to say no? Tina allows him to walk her backwards into the room, until the bed hits the back of her knees. He stands between her legs — she's vividly reminded of the time they almost took it too far after she was cursed — and gently, tenderly, dips his head down to meet her. His hands roam everywhere, from her neck to her arms to her waist to her hair.

They end up in their bed, Newt lying half on top of Tina as he kisses her senseless. This is... not as languid. This is something like love and desperation and needing to convey through touch what he evidently can't through words. He isn't aggressive, just intensely devoted, and sometimes Tina feels badly that he should be so generous and she so seemingly disinterested.

It isn't disinterest, though. It's... well, in part it's shock. It's fear, the fear of being too much for someone (although if Sophia isn't too much for Theseus — it's _obvious_ by now, what’s going on — then Tina surely can't be too much for Newt, because Sophia, god bless her heart, is the definition of “too much”). And while she and Newt came into this relationship with equally limited experience, Tina has still experienced pain with intimacy.

But one of these days, Sophia had always chided her, she will have to learn to trust someone. To believe in herself enough to believe that she is not destined for a life of hurt, and that Newt in particular will no doubt do anything within his power to prevent that. This man was willing to take a Killing Curse for her, for god’s sake. Deep down Tina knows that he would go to the ends of the earth for her, and she for him. He promised, from the very beginning, that if she jumped he would catch her. And he has, time and time again. She’d told Newt, too, that she trusted him. It feels like _years_ ago now, back in Seraphina’s office, but she’d meant it with all her heart. She just doesn’t trust _herself._

Newt has eased off, evidently sensing her inner turmoil.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, feeling terrible. The last thing either of them needs is another emotional roadblock, or Newt suddenly lapsing back into insecurity because of her own self-doubt.

“Never apologize,” he replies, genuinely horrified that she would ever feel the need to do so. “We can go meet the others, or talk,” he suggests, moving to get up. “I don’t mind.”

 _He’s_ not going anywhere. “Yeah, we did spend way too much time apologizing to each other for awhile there, didn’t we,” Tina says, quirking the corner of her mouth. She reaches up and unbuttons the top button of his shirt. Newt waits, and something that’s impossible to gauge darkens his eyes. “We figured it out, though.” She goes for the second button.

“We did,” Newt affirms quietly, stroking his thumb gently across her cheekbone. “We did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I possibly pushed the G rating a little with the Newt and Tina shenanigans. I still don't write smut, because that is not my thing, and I would be awful at it, but I think I've been veering dangerously close to it (I have some stuff written up lmao), oops.
> 
> But hooray, Ewan's back! I couldn't get rid of him, especially after someone said he was their favorite OC. Hooray for LGBTQ representation, too. I didn't want him to just be a happy-go-lucky guy, so I added a bit of depth. He's such a good guy and the 1920s was still far from an ideal time to be gay, but of course Seraphina accepts him and he may find love after all.


	2. Chapter 2

 

UPDATE: I've returned to AO3 and new chapters will be coming soon!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to readers who have been nice and supportive!


End file.
